# TESS Program G08176

Title: A TESS Search For The Slowest-Rotating Minor Planets

PI: Rice, Malena - Yale University

Type: SMALL

Summary: While the number of known solar system minor planets has steadily grown in recent years, the distribution of their fundamental properties -- in particular, their shape and rotation period distributions, which inform their evolutionary pathways -- remains more elusive. These properties offer insights into the efficiency of the YORP effect, as well as the prevalence of collisions among populations. We propose to leverage TESS FFI data to search for the slowest rotators in the solar system, focusing on targets observed in the two extended-stare TESS sectors (Sectors 97 and 98) during Cycle 8. Our program leverages TESS's continuous, high-cadence photometry to efficiently study a rare class of objects, anchoring the broader distribution of minor planet rotational properties.